Lonely Hearts
by redex
Summary: HarryDraco. AU HBP. They just don't know how to make it work.


Maaa... I don't know if I like this or not. My Draco/Harry fetish was a while ago, but I just found this in my WIP file and realized I hadn't finished it. I did it last night, late, so the last bits the tone might be off, but whatever. I like that it seems to be one of the longest pieces I've ever written... Oh, and smut.

* * *

**Lonely Heart**

* * *

He just looked really cute. I couldn't help it. My fingers reahed out of their own accord and brushed across the porcelan expanse of his cheek. 

And he just turned those deadly silver darts on me and said: "Don't."

I froze, and my hand dropped, and he turned back to his conversation.

That was it.

Tonight he'll probably make me delirious and screaming with sex, but right now we're separate entities.

None of it really matters.

---

His hands are relentless, like fluttering birds, like a twisting snake, like oh! fucking everything. He presses me up against the wall, he licks up my neck, following the pulse of my vein or artery or whatever it is, I never really paid much attention in school. I can feel his erection press against my thigh and the wall press against the back of my head, equilly hard. He'll kill me if I make too much noise, but I'm going to come, so close to coming...

I buck into his hand a few times, feeling everything let go and him do the same, and my knees let out a little so I slide down the wall, trying to catch my breath. He leans against me and I feel the same hot breath on my cheek.

I sigh as he pushes himself off of me, moment of weakness gone, erased as he charms his hands and robes clean and straightens himself.

"What in fuck did you think you were trying to pull today at lunch?" he growls, voice as cold as ever. I don't know what to say and he turns and leaves without pressing for an answer, letting me cool, afterglow gone, on the stone floor.

---

He slumps in the bath, running dripping hands through his hair as his tears drip into the water. He doesn't know I'm here - I arrived before he did. But now I'm staying and watching as he gasps and sobs and clutches at his forearm. He's weak. I know that if I catch him out like this he'll hex me into oblivion and have no qualms about it afterward. I don't want him mad at me, just this once.

"Oh, oh god," he whispers, the echos reverberating around the chamber, magnifying it. "I can't. He's... No. I can't."

And he stands up abruptly and I almost gasp to see him so naked and so perfect but then he's pulling himself out and wrapping in a towel that is scandaliously low and rubbing under his eyes and tugging at his hair and prodding at his nose in the mirror, oddly self-concious for someone so beautiful. Seemingly satisfied, he grabs his bundle of clothes and leaves the room, bare feet leaving darker tracks on the stone.

---

We're behind the owlry, just standing there with our hands in our pockets, twitching like starving chained dogs to be let loose on this flesh, to tear it apart.

"I'm not doing this any more," he says, looking at me, but with the blank expression that both implies I'm not worth his attention and that he can't bear to admit to himself what I look like.

"Oh."

And my breath is coming fast, faster than it should be. I can't tell if this is anger or grief clouding my sight, they've always been together in me.

And when he brushes by me to get back to the castle and the safety of his mirages I see the expression on his face, the one he wore after climbing, gleaming, out of the bath, and I see all the events that lead up to this final ruination.

For once, I let him go. It's not self-control that guides this decicion, hell knows I have little enough of that. It's an unwanted knowlege, acceptance, that this is the wise thing to do.

---

I'm sitting in History with Binns when I realize it, drifting along my subconcious.

This isn't just a fantasy of ours we were dabbling in while the rest of the world waited for us to return to it. It's a part of my world, and it's important to me. It may be wise to let it go, to save ourselves the hardship, but I probe my feelings (knowing Hermione would throw a fit to know I could think like this and don't do it more often) and I realize: the trouble - it's worth it.

I want the challenge. I want to stand in front of the crowd with him and dare them to ask me why. Maybe I'm as machoistic as he accuses me of being. Probably. But I want him and I know it, so a strange calm comes over me.

I can walk around, smiling at people and glowering at others and drift through classes without bungling up anything. The beauty of the entire thing is almost stunning. It's almost enough to convert me into believing in God, except I'm not quite sure which one pulled this off.

Who really gives a fuck, after all?

And that's the most liberating thing.

---

We're walking past each other, cronies in tow, casting the usual sneers and not-so-subtle curses as the sun shines down on us from a clear blue sky.

And I walk towards him, smile on my face, eyes challenging him, and the sudden flicker of fear crosses him. He realizes what I'm doing, but it's too late and maybe he doesn't want to do something about it.

I sieze his face and Crabbe and Goyle grab for their wands and Hermione and Ron do the same, and hexes fly as I kiss him full on the mouth, nudging him into action, feeling him give in for that one moment before he shoves me away, cursing, a blustering blonde storm, and hexes me into oblivion.

---

I wake up in the hospital wing and no one is there except for Madame Pomphry, all efficiency and careful admonishments. I'm not quite sure what he did to me, but I can feel the aftereffects in a unsettled stomach and aching head. I can't get my glasses to stay on with the bandages and I can't hear very well because my ears are covered, so I'm effectively deaf and blind and immobile.

I get the usual visits, seemingly manditory avowals of retribution that work around the suspicious glances and murmurs behind hands that I can't hear but see the lips moving. Surely Ron and Hermione are doing their best to deny any and all charges of faggishness on my behalf, even while questioning me themselves. After a while, I learn to my somewhat gleeful surprise that Draco is denying the kiss as well.

Perhaps there is hope after all.

---

He sneaks in after hours, no cronies or backup at hand. He hisses at me under his breath and he must have been listening for words of my recovery, because my bandages were taken off just yesterday. I'm strangely compliant, cheerful, even.

"What did you think you were doing?" he hisses for the second time in as many weeks.

I shrug, he glowers.

"Do you know how much trouble it's going to be to keep this quiet? I assure you there will be someone out to blackmail us within the week."

"Well, there's an easy answer to that," I say mildly, and he just glowers some more, suspicious.

I fufill his fears.

"Don't be ashamed of it."

He stares at me and then laughs, harshly.

"I must have hexed you a little too hard, Potter. Who's world are you living in!"

It's my turn to frown and glower at his smirk.

"We fucked," he says stonily, frozen, and I wonder if he'll have laugh lines when he gets older. "That's all. That's all there was. And I refuse to fuck up my life just becuase you haven't the guts to let go."

And there it is.

"That isn't it, and you know it, Draco," I say, sounding to myself like Dumbledore, like Lupin, like Hermione, like all the people I'm not really like. Just this is enough to show me how important he is. Not to be fucked with. "I don't just want to fuck you. I lo-"

"Shut up," he hisses, suddenly frightened and grasping at my arm violently. "Don't say that. You can't possibly know what would happen..."

"Well, it's true," I say, disgruntled, reaching out for him in the dark and sliding up his arm to his neck and feel him shudder. "And I can't believe you haven't felt it, despite your stupid arrogance. I kissed you becuase I want to fuck you, because I care about you."

"That isn't the problem!" he growls, shrugging off my hand and pulling away from the bed. "You're the arrogant one, Potter. Figure it out."

And he walks out.

---

Hermione and Ron are chattering on my bed, updating me on the status of the gossup and digging into the chocolate frogs that have been left as offerings on my bedside table.

"Just... Why did you really do it, Harry?" Hermione asks, hesitantly. They glance at each other as my hands twist together - clearly they've been talking about it without me. "I mean, if it was a love potion or a charm or something...?"

"No," I sigh. "I meant to do it."

I rub at my eyes behind my glasses, massaging the headache that has reappeared, to Madame Pomphry's disgruntlement and the woe of the Quidditch team.

"Why wouldn't he want to be with me if I know he cares about me and he knows I care about him?" I muse out loud.

The sound of a chocolate frog wrapper falling off the bed onto the floor breaks the silence that has suddenly fallen upon the room. Ron ducks down to retrieve it, blushing hard.

"Wha-what?" Hermione stutters, reaching out to check my forehead with one hand, eyebrows furrowing in concern. "Is your headache getting worse? Should we call Madame Pomphry?"

I shake my head, furious yet again at myself for implanting these ideas in everyone I know. I couldn't have known the trouble I was causing myself at the time, but now I regret it. He was right about me, back then. Now, not so much. Our masks are outdated, flawed, streatching at the seams.

"Listen to me, Hermione. I'm in love with the bastard, and he won't admit to it back, but I know he does. I saw him, in the bath, crying, a few days before he... er, well, dumped me."

I'm frantic for her insight, for someone else's opinion on the matter, to prove me that I'm not just going crazy, but I can't possibly tell her what we were doing all those snuck moments for the past few months. I feel the hypocricy tight around my neck and fight with it. Don't be ashamed, I remind myself.

Hermione looks stunned for a few minutes, but then the pieces click together and I see the cogs begin to turn in her brain, even while Ron is still staring at me in surprise.

"Well, Harry, we certainly didn't think it would be him of all people, but I guess if that's what you want to do...?"

She scootches closer on the bed as Ron looks between us.

"You mean, you were - with Malfoy?" he stutturs, mouth full of chocolate.

Hermione shushes him and turns back to me and I quail a bit, feeling something like difficult homework.

"You said he was crying?"

I nod. "And holding onto his mark."

She frowns. "Did he say anything?"

I nod. "He said just that he couldn't do something. It was broken - I don't understand it."

She nods, as if confirming a theory.

"But what's going on?" Ron interjects, waving his arms violently like a windmill. "What happened!"

"Harry is in love with Draco Malfoy and Draco feels that if he admits to loving Harry back then he'll be putting them both in danger due to his situation, not to mention the percicution they'd both face if they came out in the open about it."

I stare at her. She'll admit, in a good mood, that I've gotten better at being sensitive over the years, but this is still beyond me. I'll have to label it a girl thing, a wisdom men only inherit after a really long time.

"But that's just stupid!" I cry, running my hand through my hair in fustration. "If he loves me and he definitely knows I love him, what should it matter what everybody else thinks!"

"Not everyone has the same ideals as you, Harry," she says gently, patting my hand. "Don't you think if you knew we'd be upset if you told us that you wouldn't have?"

"No, I would have done it anyways," I retort, knowing I'm bluffing and deflate a little. "But how do I get him to stay with me? To convince him that I don't care if we haven't got any friends and have to go live in a shack in the middle of the rainforest to get away from the raging hordes?"

Ron snorts a little at this, and it's releaving to know he hasn't exploded, for the moment at least.

It gives me a little more hope of figuring all this out.

---

We freeze in the hallway, and I can see him glancing around, realizing that no one else is there to back him up. Nothing to keep me restrained into my mask, although I've already proven that I can discard it. He doesn't know that I used the Marauder's Map to corner him and got Hermione and Ron to guard either side from the mobs. It seems like an unlucky coincidence. Providence.

"Potter," he says snidely, tilting his head in the slightest of bows before trying to move past me. I step in front of him, and he freezes again, a flicker of fear passing behind his eyes before he sneers at me: "Get out of my way."

"Maybe you've never had to work for love, Draco, but I have. And I'm not letting you go that easily."

"Who ever said I love you?" he growls, and my resolve flickers and he pushes me back and passes on down the corriador.

The chance is lost.

---

Ron and Hermione have been plying me with chocolate and stolen butterbeer for the past hour or so, trying to get me to talk. I just don't know what to say. Maybe I was wrong all this time. Maybe I'm not worth the risk; just becuase I've gotten used to everyone hating me at one point or another doesn't mean that he has to deal with it.

I don't look at him any more. I carry the map around with me everywhere just to avoid him, and the whispers haven't dissapeared. The guys in the locker room after practice look at me oddly and change quickly before leaving. It's stiffling, but nothing I haven't dealt with before. It's not the gossup that is getting me down: it's the fact that he seems to be getting along fine without me.

I wave off Hermione and Ron with a weak smile and a few excuses before going up to crawl into bed. I try to remember his voice, low and rough with tostesterone, breathing into my ear as he pumped hard into me. His hands on my hips and legs, pressing me and forming me into the right position, just so he can lean over me and snap at my mouth. My hand wanders, touching faintly, feeling the tightening of my stomach in anticipation. There is no teasing this time, just pleasure fufilled. His tounge, so skilled at shaping words and shapes on my chest as he palms my cock, nuzzling my neck and biting down as he teases my head before clamping down and throwing himself into the movement, and pressing hard. The silver of the canvas above the bed before I close my eyes and give myself to it, feeling the build up of the tension in his body as he gets rougher and deeper and the rise of the tension in me for it. And then he would push and then pull and the in and out is enough, with _his_ hand. The calm afterwards and I'm crying.

---

I pass Goyle, alone, and it only mildly strikes me that Draco and Crabbe aren't with him. And I continue walking and there he is, sitting on a windowledge. Hermione makes a sqeeky noise and grabbs Ron and turns around with a weak "Oh, I think I forgot something..." that nevertheless gets them out of the way.

It strikes me that he went out of his way to get me alone, that _he_ came to_ me_, in a sense. My stomach is fluttering and my heart is beating very, very fast. The pause before the dive.

He stands up and looks at me, robes billowing impressively and he stalks towards me, a frightening glare on his face that I work to match. I'll not loose to him, even now.

"I don't think you understand what would happen to me and everyone connected to me should this problem of ours get out, Potter," he says silkily, and all of a sudden, I understand. I know what he wants, what I'm supposed to say.

"I won't let anything happen to you."

He shivers even though it isn't cold in here, and pulls his robes closer around him.

"You can't protect everyone from him. He knows everything."

"You're being paranoid. There are people he can't touch, places he doesn't know. You could be safe."

My own calm is kind of scary. It's like the feeling I get when I'm flying in a Quidditch game, eye on the snitch, nothing else matters. The noise phases out, and everything focuses on that one thing. The adreniline, maybe, but whatever it is, it works.

"Don't insult my intelligence," he says, almost offhand except for the venom in his words.

"I'm not. You're very intelligent, so I don't understand why you're being so stupid about this."

I approach him like one would a scared and dangerious animal: cautiously, hands palm up; look: no weapons.

"I think you're the one being stupid," he says warily, like a little boy wealding a stick sword. "You can't save everyone."

"Don't be arrogant, Draco. You're not everyone, even though sometimes it feels like it."

And I hug him, gently at first, predisposed to awkwardness, but he curls into me with arms unmoving.

"Harry," he whispers and jerks at my heart. "I don't know."

We stand there for a few moments, the sun coming in the window and shining on his hair. It's almost as if we've fallen asleep, here, but then he stirs and wakes and lets go.

He repeats: "I don't know."

He gives me a sad little smile before leaving.

The points I loose for missing nearly half a class without excuse don't really file themselves into my mind. I might as well have missed the entire class for how much attention I was paying, and McGonigall gave up her speach when she held me after class with an exasperated look, hoping I would pull myself together soon, for my own sake.

---

It was a rainy day, the day that he caught me and dragged me into the Room of Requirement, slamming me up against a convenient wall and kissed me untill I bit him.

"Fuck me, right now," he pleaded, and there was an oversized bed with beautiful coverings and his hair spread over the maroon like a river of silver. His throat opened up to me and I kissed down the artery there, feeling him both struggle and give way to me.

His legs opened with a sigh, a feathery touch on the inside of his thigh twitching a nerve.

Somewhere, my rational brain was freaking out at this change in demeanor, but right now I finally had him where I wanted him. Our bodies fit together as if they had never been apart.

"I love you," he sobbed into my shoulder when he came. "Oh, god, I'm so sorry. I love you so much - it hurts."

He told me afterwards that his mother had been killed on Voldimort's orders. I held him in the warmth of the Room's bed and listened to him talk like I had never heard before. About his parents, about how he had always wanted to be successful so that they would be proud of him, how he had been so envious of my parseltounge.

I owled Sirius and Remus the next day.

We were going to have visitors this christmas at the Black Manor.

* * *

Comment, please! 


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